[Toasty's Dad]

I've just reduced the lighting load in our 16' Bambi CCD by about half! I tried replacing a couple of the 10W halogen bulbs used in almost all of the CCD's lights.

I was expecting some reduction in apparent brightness, since the actual lumen output of the 5W is somewat less than half that of the 10W. But thanks to the miracle of human visual non-linearity, neither wife nor I could detect _any_ reduced brightnes from any single bulb.

So, we replaced every bulb we could (all 21 of them in the 16'!), and are very happy with the result. We did notice a slight decrease in what I'll call the
"overall impression of brightness" in the coach when ambiently lit, but it's certainly not enough to either impede use nor does it detract from the beautiful look of the interior at night.

Given our energy use patterns, this 50% savings in juice consumed by lights should reduce our overall 12V consumption by 25%. Fantastic for boondocking.

I encourage all CCDers to try the experiment if you camp away from generators or AC hookups.

Also, we now have 24 unneeded G4 12V10W halogen bulbs. 5 are new in box, 19 are of unknown age, since they came with our 2004 Bambi, purchased in Nov 2005. They'd cost about $40 including shipping from bulbs.com, I'll mail 'em to the first Airstreamer who wants 'em for 15 bucks.

Later,
jon